The Certifiably Nuts AZ Senate Sham ‘Fraudit’ Needs To Stop (Updated)

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The Washington Post reports, As Trump seizes on Arizona ballot audit, election officials fear partisan vote counts could be the norm in future elections (excerpt):

More than five months after the 2020 presidential election, and after numerous failed attempts to overturn the results, former president Donald Trump has seized on a new avenue to try to call the outcome into question: a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Arizona’s largest county.

Several advisers said the former president has become fixated on the unorthodox process underway in Phoenix, where the GOP-led state Senatetook ballots and voting equipment from Maricopa County and turned them over to Cyber Ninjas, a private contractor whose chief executive has echoed baseless claims that the election was fraudulent but has now promised a fair review of the November results.

Ensconced at his private club in Florida, Trump asks aides for updates about the process multiple times a day, advisers said, expressing particular interest in the use of UV lights to scrutinize Maricopa’s ballots — a method that has bewildered election experts, who say it could damage the votes.

“He talks about it constantly,” said one person who recently visited Mar-a-Lago and listened to Trump discuss the recount for about 45 minutes, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Better Know Your Crazy: This was a QAnon conspiracy theory that President Trump had the government mark ballots so it could identify fraudulent ballots. Trump is trying to perpetuate this debunked QAnon conspiracy theory. Politifact Did President Trump issue secret watermarks on ballots? No, that’s another QAnon conspiracy theory. USA Today Fact check: False QAnon claim that Trump secretly watermarked mail-in ballots to prove fraud. Trump is a malignant moron.

Trump must really be heartbroken that the sham “fraudit” is no longer checking ballots under UV light because there are no watermarks. (For the record, you do not need a UV light to see a watermark. Just hold it up to the light.)

This is reminiscent of Trump saying a year ago to inject household cleaners and to shine a UV light inside the body to kill the COVID-19 virus. The man is obsessed with UV light. He is a complete moron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHkzqejFKbM

Trump’s embrace of the Arizona effort — which he and his allies claim will prove that the election was stolen — has come amid mounting anxiety among election officials that similar partisan vote counts could become the norm.

“I’m very concerned this has ramifications for every state in the country,” Kim Wyman, a Republican who serves as secretary of state in Washington state, said in an interview. “This is politicizing an administrative process with no real structure or laws or rules in place to guide how it goes.”

She added: “Every time in the future the party in control loses, they will use some post-election administrative process to call it into question, and people will no longer have confidence that we have fair elections.”

Exactly what Trump’s puppet master Putin wants to accomplish.

In Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican election official who has clashed with Trump, tweeted that the Arizona audit is “another step in undermining confidence in elections. This process is neither transparent nor, likely, legal.”

The endeavor in Phoenix has been pilloried for abandoning state guidelines intended to make recounts fair, and for allowing the rules to be set by a private contractor who previously promoted claims that the election was stolen.

The Rachel Maddow Show had a good summary of the days events on Thursday. This clip is slightly edited from what aired last night (MSNBC edited out a portion of mockery and laughing at the stupidity of it all).

ABC 15 in Phoenix reports Secretary of State gets observers inside Maricopa County Election Audit, Cyber Ninjas has to reveal methods:

After a week trying to get in to watch, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs now has observers monitoring the recount of Maricopa County’s 2020 Presidential election results.

When the 2 p.m. audit team began its work Thursday, an election machine expert and two election auditing professionals were on-site watching.

“I feel comfortable that we have experts in the room who know what to look for in terms of any kind of election audit,” Secretary of State Hobbs said.

The observers are Ryan Macias. He’s the former acting director of certification and testing for the U.S. election assistance commission. Macias certified Arizona’s voting machines. The two other observers are Jennifer Morell an election consultant with Protect Democracy and Liz Howard an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice.

Until Thursday, Secretary of State Hobbs was denied access to monitor the audit, a judge later ordered her office be allowed. Senate President Karen Fann, who is orchestrating the recount, and Hobbs worked out an arrangement before a noon deadline.

“Cyber Ninjas and their subcontractors are not auditing firms, not elections experts. They are absolutely making this up as they go along,” Hobbs said.

Cyber Ninjas complied with a court order Thursday requiring it to reveal the policies and procedures the company is using to conduct the election audit.

Cyber Ninjas tried to have its methods kept under seal claiming proprietary privilege, but the judge wouldn’t allow it.

Tom Collins, who is the executive director for the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, believes the company probably supplied enough information to satisfy the court.

“As far as responding to specific concerns that have been identified on the record, this document does serve to try and articulate the answer to those,” Collins said.

Secretary of State Hobbs is reserving judgment about Cyber Ninjas methods. Saying only her office is reviewing what the company provided.

“I think it is incredibly unfortunate that it took a court order to provide this level of transparency that we’re just now getting,” Hobbs said.

Note to the Secretary of State and Maricopa County Board of Supervisors: Now that your election equipment has been compromised by MAGA/QAnon conspiracy nuts, you have to remove this election equipment from any further use and purchase all new election equipment to replace it.

No one should be using election equipment compromised by these damn fools. No one can trust the security and accuracy of equipment allowed to be compromised by these damn fools. I just want to put this out there for discussion.

You should also expect to be sued by the manufacturers of this equipment because of the breach of the equipment by unauthorized personnel, in violation of their contract with the county.

Clearly not all of the legal ramifications of this snipe hunt were thought out.

UPDATE: At least one known seditious insurrectionist on January 6 is an auditor for Cyber Ninjas. When a reporter reported this, the reporter was booted out and lost his press privileges.

This proving that this was a baldfaced lie.

And it appears that Cyber Ninjas did a copy and paste for its polices after this “fraudit” began.